How to Choose and Implement a New Learning Management System

AUGUST 2011
Charlene Douglas, EdD Higher Education Marketing Manager

HOW TO CHOOSE AND IMPLEMENT A NEW LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

BECAUSE LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS ARE MAJOR INVESTMENTS IN TIME AND MONEY, THE PROCESS FOR CHOOSING A NEW LMS SHOULD BE THOROUGH.
The broad use of Learning Management Systems1 (LMSs) across education has become an ingrained component of most educational institutions learning strategy. Educational institutions find the need to move from first generation and even second generation applications to newer systems that provide the latest functionality demanded by an increasingly sophisticated and experienced faculty and user community
The process of choosing a new Learning Management System includes defining business requirements and a realistic projection of costs (in dollars and time) for the new application for present needs and into the future. The following information will walk you and your institution through some of the major decisions that are typically considered during the implementation of a new LMS, including: defining the objectives, strategies, resources, functionality, support and technical aspects required. A typical scenario for choosing a new LMS is provided; not every educational institution is required to follow this procedure (please check with your Purchasing Department to determine how such acquisitions have to be done in your organization).

AUGUST 2011
Charlene Douglas, EdD Higher Education Marketing Manager.

Institutional Considerations

Have the reasons why a new LMS is being considered been clearly identified (i.e., new to eLearning, outgrown the current system, outdated or lack of functionality, too expensive, dissatisfied with vendor, need to expand current online offerings due to budget constraints)? What are the key issues, problems, and/or challenges that a new LMS is to address? Have the staff and budget associated with the task of selecting, implementing, supporting and maintaining a new LMS been identified and earmarked?

1 Also called a Virtual Learning Environment or Course Management System .

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LEARNING STRATEGY
A learning strategy should reflect how you plan on delivering learning programs to the users who need them to accomplish your educational goals. What is the makeup of your learners are they distributed learners or mostly/exclusively on-campus learners? What are the areas of emphases for your LMS? What new learning processes would you like to add? How will you measure the success and calculate the Return on Investment (ROI) of your new LMS? Furthermore, it is important to focus on pedagogical approaches and models that are important to your institution (e.g., collaborative learning, problem-based learning, case-based learning and experiential learning). Additionally, it is important to determine the emphasis given to student-student interaction and quality teaching materials (i.e., text, audio, video and multimedia).

critical needs statements and highly differentiated qualification checklists and documents are invaluable in this process. It is also helpful to consider the following in the analysis of your requirements:

Functional and Technical Requirements

Functional

What features are mandatory vs. what are optional? How does the system support the learner, instructor, administration and the overall learning process? Are grading and reporting formats easy to use, exportable, and support customizable views? Does the system provide a user interface for all level of users to easily interact with LMS? What language support do you need? Does the LMS support a variety of pedagogical approaches to instruction and assessment including social learning/media? Is instructional design guidance available to aid in the creation and sharing of content? Does the LMS support the alignment of educational standards to key teaching and learning outcomes? Is the solution supported by an active community of users? How important is accessibility guidelines and compliance? Is a mobile application available so that learners can access their courses anytime, anywhere?

REQUIREMENTS
Most successful LMS implementations include a selection process that engages all stakeholder groups including faculty, staff and students, representatives from different divisions, departments, or lines of business that will be most affected by the new initiative. Once the selection committee has been selected, prioritization of requirements can be made in order to find the right LMS that will meet your core needs initially and grow to meet your expanded needs in the future while remaining stable with regard to cost. Requirements will include functional and technical as well as business relationships. This information can be gathered a variety of ways such as holding a series of meetings, conducting focus groups, and/or using a survey. The overall process and broad directives as well as the detailed functionality need to be considered. Clear, unambiquous

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Administration

What administrative and reporting/analytics capabilities do you need? Can the solution be tailored to meet your institutions specific organizational needs and branding requirements? Does the LMS provide administrative functions to customize permissions and securities at various organization levels? How scalable is the solution? How reliable is the solution? How interoperable is the solution? How important is the ability to migrate/convert existing courses/course content? And how easy is it to exit the system?

What third party integrations are available and how easy are they to accomplish (e.g., SIS, Central Authentication Service, portal, library, content providers)?

Business Relationship Requirements

Functional

How committed is the vendor to supporting the educational community? How responsive is the vendor? Can you obtain and review current client testimonials? Does the value of the solution justify the cost? Does the vendor welcome client input into the R&D process? What is the vendors history in the educational software market? Is the vendor financially stable? Is the vendor likely to be a reliable partner for the foreseeable future? What will be the initial investment and long-term Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)? How will the new LMS affect the alignment, development, engagement and retention of staff and students specifically think about the impact the LMS will have with respect to productivity, revenue, satisfaction and compliance.

Training and Support

Will your institution provide its own help desk support or will this need to be provided by the vendor? If by the vendor, what are their response and resolution times? How is the Service Level Agreement structured?

What kind of training is provided by the vendor? How easy is the new LMS to understand and use?

Technical

Will the solution be self-hosted or vendor-hosted? Is the hosting environment secure and reliable? How easy is the solution to upgrade and maintain? How efficient is the implementation of the solution? With what standards does the LMS comply? What are the dependencies on and support for other learning or administrative systems? What are your institutions disaster recovery policies and can the new LMS comply with these policies?

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REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL PROCESS

Requests for Proposals (RFPs)2 are a common mechanism employed by may consider eliminating that vendor from the list of those being considered. Alternatively, you may keep the vendor in the process until an overall view is obtained of best fit. Following the creation of a short list, many purchasing institutions schedule onsite meetings and demos so that vendors can answer specific questions and demonstrate their responses. It is important for vendors to make clear what part of the functionality is included out-of-the-box with minor configuration changes and what parts require customization. It is more informative to have vendors respond to well-defined use cases instead of simply giving a general demonstration of their system. The use case is a list of action-based tasks that will demonstrate the systems ability to meet your specific needs. Use cases can be sent to the short-listed vendors ahead of time. This way the onsite visit will force the vendor to focus on tasks and issues that your institution has to face instead of the bells and whistles normally shown. In order to obtain the required buy-in and to ensure user engagement in the selection process, establish a task force with members from appropriate business and academic units to review the RFP submissions. Based on their importance, you may weight sections of the RFP differently. Establish a rating system and use it during the review of each proposal for consistency. Each rating can also include a comment section for specific and/or general impressions. In this manner, you are not only acquiring a quantitative measure but a subjective impression of each specification for each vendor. Focus on the core or highest priority requirements. These are the requirements that you have determined are central to consideration of the vendor. If one or more of the core requirements cannot be immediately met by the LMS, you
2 Other types of information gathering documents include a Request for Information, Request for Quote, Request

The LMS needs to be a product that can scale to keep pace with your growing enrollments. Moreover, you need an adaptable and complete solution that is flexible and customizable enough to meet your unique needs.

organizations to objectively select products from the open market. Education providers frequently use RFPs as part of their procurement process. A well written RFP will outline specific information about your institution, the services and products you need, and the specific requirements vendors must meet. Prepare the RFP, if required, based upon your requirements (see above sections for basic requirements) which are reflected as specifications. Try to be as specific as possible for each requirement so that the vendor can respond directly to your requirement rather than provide a general response. Including scenarios in your RFP is a good way to obtain a clear indication as to how the LMS vendor can meet your needs as they respond to very specific situations they will need to accommodate. Requesting a proposed project plan is a good practice. A sample list of basic LMS features is included at the end of this white paper for consideration.

Hands-on access to the demo site is imperative in order to enable your faculty and staff the freedom to really put the proposed solution through its paces. The use case document can be used once again for validating and double-checking that the vendors application meets your critical requirements. After careful consideration and review, a decision can be made

for Tender, and/or Request for Bid. The determination of what one applies depends on Purchasing Department requirements of your institution and the desired outcome. This process may result in a single award or multiple awards.

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT BEST PRACTICES

While there are many important decisions to consider during the evaluation process, it is equally important to have a good overall project plan for the LMS implementation. There are several proven steps to follow:

CONCLUSION
Choosing and implementing a new LMS is a long-term, mission-critical commitment. The LMS needs to be an extensible product that can scale to keep pace with your growing enrollments. It should be an adaptable and complete solution that is flexible and customizable enough to meet your unique needs yet also be affordable. Careful planning and review of vendors solutions can result in an LMS implementation that can serve your stakeholders for years to come. And, if you are not sure where to start or need examples, there are plenty of project plans and templates that can be shared to help get the process started.

1. Formation of a steering group to manage the entire initiative including

vision and strategy

2. Formation of a management team for day-to-day operations and

administration

3. Development of a comprehensive project plan, deliverables, timeline,

and ownership

4. Management of budgets 5. Management of technology, including the software to be implemented and

the hardware on which it will be installed

ABOUT DESIRE2LEARN
Desire2Learn Incorporated is a world-leading provider of enterprise eLearning solutions that enable institutions and other organizations to create teaching and learning environments that reflect their vision, goals, and branding. Desire2Learn and its subsidiaries support more than six million learners worldwide. Clients include: Higher Education, K-12, and Healthcare as well as Associations, Government and other leading organizations. Founded in 1999, Desire2Learn has personnel in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. For more information, visit: www.Desire2Learn.com or Call 1.888.772.0325 or 1.519.772.0325.

6. Management of the training, expectations, and support of end-users 7. Planning for the uploading of content into the LMS or migrating/converting
of existing content

8. Content creation standards, process, and approval 9. Development of both print and online help and documentation for
the system Change management procedures while the implementation is underway Management and training of all personnel involved in the project Testing and quality assurance procedures Process to expand and scale program through growth or inclusion/ creation of additional programs as success is experienced.

10. 11. 12. 13.

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RESOURCES
b online learning, LMS Evaluator Tool, http://www.bonlinelearning.com.au Charter for Enterprise Learning Systems and Applications Procurement (ELSAP), April 16, 2009. IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc. e-Learning Engineering, Learning Management System Selection, http://www.elearning-engineering.com/lms/index.htm Ivertech Software Central, Learning Management Systems: What You Need to Know Before Choosing a Learning Management System, http://software.ivertech.com/_ivertechArticle27841_ LearningmanagementsystemsWhatyouneedtoknowbeforechoosingalearning managementsystem.htm LMS KnowledgeBase 2011, http://www.brandon-hall.com/store/knowledgebases.html Michael Feldstein blog, The. http://mfeldstein.com/advice-for-small-schools-on-the-lms-selection-process/ TheAcademy.com, LMS Selection, http://www.theacademy.com/faqs/lms-knowledge-center/lms-tips-and-tricks/ lms-selection-tips

Web 2.0 integration File Management Foreign Language Support Accessibility Communication Features (e.g., discussion forums, chat, etc.) Assessment Features (e.g., quizzes, competencies, rubrics, ePortfolios, etc .) Assignment/Dropbox Reporting Student Tracking Conditional/Adaptive Release Gradebook Social Networking Mobile Application Help Search System Administration User Data Scalability Security Maintenance Backup/Restore/Upgrades Software as a Services (SaaS) Vendor Infrastructure Requirements Institutions Architecture providing the vendor with a clear understanding of the architecture in which their product will function Ability to integrate with third party systems (e.g., SIS, library systems, content providers, etc.)

LIST OF COMMONLY REQUESTED LMS FEATURES

Support of educational and technical standards Course Development and Content Authoring Course Management Collaborative Learning Content Distribution Features Customization Features

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Desire2Learn includes Desire2Learn Incorporated and its subsidiaries. Desire2Learn is a global provider of enterprise eLearning solutions enabling leading institutions and organizations to create teaching and learning environments that support them in realizing their vision.

Desire2Learn Incorporated
Phone: 1.519.772.0325 (Worldwide) Toll Free: 1.888.772.0325 (North America) 0.808.234.4235 (United Kingdom and Europe) 0.800.452.069 (New Zealand) 1.800.656.210 (Australia) Fax: Web: 1.519.772.0324 www.Desire2Learn.com

Email: ContactUs@Desire2Learn.com

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WHITEPAPER